This index to once-secret FBI files is full of abbreviations common to the FBI, but arcane outside the Bureau. Here is a guide to some of the more common abbreviations you may come across, and what those abbreviations stand for. This abbreviation look-up is intended to grow as the index grows.
The FBI created many acronyms by its system–adopted early in its history–of naming cases in ways that could efficiently and economically be transmitted by teletype and wire. Thus, a hypothetical case of a person suspected of spying in the United States for Germany during World War II may well have been called NAZISPY. Where possible, such abbreviations are included.
| ABBREVIATION | MEANING |
|---|---|
| AANDP | |
| ABSCAM | Acronym for “Arab Scam,” ABSCAM was a 1970s investigation into susceptibility of members of Congress to bribery, using an FBI agent masquerading as an Arab businessman seeking to buy U.S. citizenship. |
| ACLU | American Civil Liberties Union |
| AEC | Atomic Energy Commission, the government agency which oversaw nuclear weapons and nuclear energy until its function was folded into the Department of Energy (DOE) in the 1970s. |
| aka or a/k/a | Also known as, common law-enforcement parlance for indicating an individual may be known by another name. |
| BK | |
| BOPNO | Bureau of Prisons Notorious Offender |
| BRIB | Bribery |
| BRILAB | FBI investigation into corruption of elected officials in the 1970s, named for the fictitious Louisiana shrimp company the FBI created as a cover. |
| BUND | Pro-German groups, some of which were active in the U. S. during WWII. |
| CHILBOM | FBI acronym for the investigation into the 1970s death of Chilean attache Orlando Letelier, whose car was bombed in Washington, DC |
| COINTELPRO | FBI acronym for Counter-Intelligence Program, a campaign to discredit activist groups of the 1960s. |
| CORE | Committee on Racial Equality, a 1960s civil rights group |
| CPUSA | Communist Party of the United States of America |
| CWP | Communist Workers Party |
| DCI | Director, Central Intelligence (official title of the head of the CIA) |
| Deseg | Desegregation. Federal effort that began in the 1940s to enforce, with federal troops where necessary, laws that prohibited different treatment of people because of the color of their skin. |
| DIES COM | House of Representatives Special Investigation Committee, headed by Rep. Martin Dies Jr. (D-TX) from 1938-1944. |
| DOJ | Department of Justice, the agency of the federal government with responsibility for the FBI |
| ESP | Espionage |
| et. al. | And others. Common legal terminology. From the Latin et alii, for and others. |
| FDP | |
| FDR | Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President (1933-1945) |
| FOIA | Freedom of Information Act (5 USC 552) |
| FOR AGS REG AC | Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law enacted in 1938 requiring those acting in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign government to disclose their activities. |
| ITAR | |
| IWW | Industrial Workers of the World, also known as “the Wobblies”; labor group of the 1930s and 1940s. |
| JAP | Abbreviation for “Japanese” common in the U. S. at the time of WWII, but now ethnically insensitive. |
| JCS | Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military committee made up of the head of each branch of the Armed Forces that advises the Secretary of Defense. |
| JEH | J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the 1920s through the 1960s |
| JFK | John F. Kennedy, President (1961-1963) |
| KGB | USSR Intelligence organization, initials stand for Russian words for “Committee of State Security.” |
| KKK | Ku Klux Klan, an American white-supremacy group |
| LCN | La Cosa Nostra, literally “Our Thing,” but shorthand for Italian and Italian-American organized-crime groups commonly known as “The Mafia.” |
| MEX-AM | Mexican-American |
| Mil. Att. | Military Attache |
| MNVD | |
| NOBP | Notorious Offender, Bureau of Prisons (same as BOPNO, above) |
| OC | Organized Crime |
| POW | Prisoner of War |
| qpp file amb | |
| RICO | Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization, a legal term introduced in 1960s legislation that made it easier to prosecute organized-crime groups. Pronounced REE’-coh. |
| RYMUR | FBI acronym for the investigation into the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, at the jungle compound of Rev. Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. |
| SDS | Students for a Democratic Society, a 1960s activist group |
| SNCC | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 1960s activist group, generally pronounced Snick. |
| SLA | Symbionese Liberation Army, activist group of the 1970s that assassinated a public official and kidnapped the daughter of a newspaper owner. |
| SSA | Selective Service Act, also known as “the draft.” The law that allowed individuals to be compelled to serve in the Armed Forces from prior to WWII until the 1970s. |
| Supr Ct | Supreme Court of the United States |
| SWP | Socialist Workers Party |
| TVA | Tennessee Valley Authority, government electrification project that began in the 1930s |
| UCP | |
| USSR | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| WETH FUG | Weather Underground Fugitive, members of a 1960s and 1970s terrorist group who became fugitives |
| WW1 | World War I |
| WW2 | World War II |
| YABMUR | FBI investigation into the 1960s murders of United Mine Workers president Joseph Yablonski |
| Yippie | Youth International Party, activist group of the late 1960s |